


I've Been Looking For You Looking For Me

by Catchclaw



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Casual Sex, Communication Failure, Diplomacy, Feeling One's Age, First Time, Flirting, M/M, Pining, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 17:55:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9283448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: Languages have never been the Captain's forte. No wonder he and Spock get their wires crossed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Cheers to the inestimable areiton, whose careful beta brought this story to bloom.

Languages had never been the Captain's forte. In his native tongue, he could be a master, slick when he wanted and hammer down when he had to. Move much past Standard, though, and the Captain's surefooting sank. True, he could bluff his way through small talk with a Rigelian; had even been known to hold his drunken own with a surly Alderberan. But when you got down to it, to who the Captain was at brass tacks: a linguist, he was not.

So gods bless the Universal Translator. Even if it made him feel slow sometimes, six steps behind the natural flow of conversation. It irritated him, frankly, not knowing the language of the day, and he got sick of straining to hear as the wispy voice in his ear brought him up to speed on what everyone else had been laughing at 30 seconds ago. And that was on day one.

Four days and eight hours later, then, the Captain’d had goddamn enough.

He was good at diplomacy, he told himself, squinting through the viewport. Really, he was. At least the kind you could do on the fly, in the heat of a star-crossed moment, staring down the barrel of a Bird of Prey and flanked by his ship's phasers besides.

But this? The boardroom sort of peacemaking where the whole first day had been dedicated to polite introductions and lengthy opening remarks, to the bobbing of heads and other primary appendages and the awkward recitation of the home planet's credo in a half dozen languages— _my heart is in the work_ —it was driving him steadily mad, in no small part because at least three of the species at the table didn't even _have_ hearts in the way that most humanoids did, so why the UT selected that particular verbiage as comparable was, at the very least, a mystery.

"Captain," Spock said. "Are you well?"

The Captain didn't bother turning. He rolled his eyes at Spock's reflection instead. "No. No, Mr. Spock, I am not. I’m damn well two shakes from crazy."

Spock slid forward, the sort of sleek, imperceptible movement that made him seem like a natural force. "Sir, may I say, your discomfort is…rather apparent."

The Captain winced. “That bad?”

A nod. “At least for the several hours.”

The negotiations, such as they were, had broken for a repast. Most of the other representatives had left the chamber, spilled out into the hall in a noisy rush in search of refreshment. But the Captain had lingered behind, watched them all go—including Spock, he'd thought—then bolted for the slim windows in the far wall. The _Enterprise_ wasn't out there, of course; she was a day a two away, depending on how hard Scotty was electing to push her back from the Kirnin system. Two and half days there, then another spent shuttling colonists out of range of the approaching asteroid storm, and only then would she cut a long arc back to Starbase 73 to pick up what was left of her Captain. Remains carried, no doubt, by her First Officer, rock steady; the Captain under one arm and a peace treaty under the other.

"We need you at this conference," Admiral Nogura had said, a sleek buzzard on the viewscreen. "Representing our interests, yes. But it’s more just flying the flag. You'll be showing the Nayriahe'x that the Federation is invested in seeing this dispute resolved quickly, before there's another incident."

"Surely there are diplomats, sir, better trained than I am, who can—"

"There are, and we'll have at least one there to support you. But the Nayiahe'x revere strength, Captain. Of the military variety. A show of force without force, if you like.”

The Captain had done his level best not to groan. They just wanted braid at the table, huh? Fine. He could grit his teeth and take orders. Sure he could. _Fine_. "Sir,” he’d said. “Yes, sir."

The Admiral, that bastard, had shown him sharksteeth. "Excellent!" he’d purred. "Report to Starbase 73 post-haste. Oh, and take your First Officer with you. I’m told he speaks fluent Nayi'x."

“Better him than me,” McCoy had said later, after the Captain had finished bitching. “For your sake, anyway.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

McCoy had leaned back, balancing an empty glass in his palm. “Makin’ professional nice ain’t my forte. Spock’ll love it. And he’ll keep you from killing anybody. Probably.”

“Very funny.”

The doctor’s grin had flickered, the way it did when he thought he was imparting great wisdom. “And if you, Captain sir,” he’d said, effusive, “have be stranded on dry land, no rescue in sight, I’d think you want Spock beached right there with you, more than anybody else in galaxy.”

The Captain had ignored the bait. “A starbase is hardly a desert island, Bones.”

“Mmmhmm,” McCoy’d said. “Maybe not. But we’ll see how you feel after a few days of being stuck in the same goddamn place.”

Spock cleared his throat, a small, pointed sound that brought the Captain back to the depressing situation at hand: to the dull grey hues of a conference room and the stretch of space untouchable, unreachable, outside.

What he wouldn’t have given for a palm tree.

"With all due respect, Captain," Spock said. "I understand that this is not, shall we say, your duty of choice. However, may I point out that the only way in which you might escape this assignment is to successfully complete it. Which I do not think you will be able to do, sir, if you refuse to rejoin the proceedings."

"Yes," the Captain said, reluctant, more to the stars than to Spock. "Yes. I know." He straightened up, feeling a bit like a recalcitrant child. "I'm just—it's been a very long day, Mr. Spock."

Spock tilted his head, frowning. "Has it?"

"It has indeed. Cooped up in here, and"—he saw Spock's expression swing from confused to concerned, and the Captain veered right, swerving to avoid a well-meaning interrogation—"and, uh, I think it's just the UT." He tapped the universal translator node slung above his ear. "Wearing it this long makes my brain tired, or something. I don't know."

Spock considered him, so carefully and closely that the Captain was severely tempted to squirm. "So you would find this experience less trying if you spoke the relevant languages. I see."

No, the Captain thought, irritation catching in his throat. You really don't.

"Perhaps," Spock went on, eminently reasonable, "the unit is malfunctioning."

"No, I don't—"

Spock ignored him, his gaze drifting to the node. "Perhaps I should take a look at it after the day's proceedings have concluded.”

The door to the chamber flew open and there was a rush of color and sound. Over Spock's shoulder, the Captain caught a glimpse of Dimi, the delegate from Benari-Vega—the one ray of sunshine a room full of fog. He was nodding along with the excitable delegate from Tellar, but his violet eyes found the Captain's for a moment and he blushed, a beautiful orange wave pouring over the dark curves of his face. This, the Captain had learned after a couple of awkward minutes when he was convinced that his every word offended the Benarian-v to his core—meant Dimi was happy. Pleased to see the Captain. Nothing more.

"Captain?" Spock was staring at him, expectant.

"Oh, I. Uh—"

All around them, beings were finding their places, retaking their stations around the table. The Qma, the evening's acting chair-creature, was sliding to zur post, one tentacle clutched messily around the gavel. Dimi, the Captain saw, had settled carefully in his seat, even as he kept one ear towards the still-gesturing Tellerite, and—oh, hell, the Captain thought. The UT. Right.

"Ok," the Captain said, scooting away from the viewport and herding Spock towards the table. "Maybe you’re right. I'll bring this damn thing by later. You can poke at it to your heart's content."

Spock gave him a strange look, his eyes saying something the Captain couldn’t quite understand. "Very well,” he said. “Bring the unit by my quarters this evening and I will…attend."

He stepped away, equine grace, just as the gavel fell.

"Um," the Captain said to dead air. "All right."

"Fellow beings," the Qma hooted from the dais, jiggling its headfeathers in excitement. "Welcome. Let us rise once more and speak the sacred words of our hosts, the Nayiahe'x."

The Captain mumbled the words, his mouth two steps behind the rest of the room. "My heart," he managed, slipping into his seat beside an unhappy Andorian, "is in the work."

________________

 

When the proceedings finally broke for the day, the Captain tried not to bolt for the door. Tried. It was a very near thing.

I'm walking quickly, he told himself as he skipped over the Qma's lower tentacles and skirted a cluster of Nayiahe'x. Moving efficiently. After all, there were only eight hours until the whole thing started over again. Gods, he missed his ship. And his crew. And being anywhere but this damnable room. He was nearly, oh so very nearly in the corridor when—

"Captain," the UT whispered. "Pardon me. Captain?"

There were two fingers on his wrist, a cool press of flesh against flesh. He looked up and saw violet.

"Oh," the Captain said. "Hello, Dimi."

Dimi's face rippled. "You were late to this last session," he chided, the UT reducing his voice, like the fall of dry leaves, to a mechanical whisper. "Captain. What kind of example are you setting, hmm? Is this the way of your Starfleet, to be always behind?"

The Captain grinned. "I was exactly on time," he retorted, tugging Dimi gently around the crush and into the hallway. "Stop trying to get me in trouble."

Dimi colored for him again, a rosy peach that wound up his cheeks. "Tsk. I would never do that."

He’d noticed Dimi from the word go—even in a room as colorful as this one, the Benarian-v was hard to miss—but it was Dimi who’d sought him out. On the second day of the conference, he’d been politely pigeon-holed at lunch, Dimi nudging him into a quiet corner with some Centurai tea. There, he’d delightfully talked the Captain’s ear off about anything, everything other than the official business at hand, and in twenty minutes, they were making eyes unabashed and the Captain couldn’t stop smiling.

Damn, he’d missed flirting. The right out there in the open sort, where despite what was no doubt a distinct difference in biology, among many other things, two beings could simply agree on finding the other attractive and see where such an agreement might lead.

"Captain," Dimi said again. "I would speak with you privately, yes? May we?"

"Yes," the Captain said. "We may. Lead on."

Dimi squeezed his wrist, firm, then let him go. "Yes," he said in shaky Standard, lips twisting with the effort. "Yes."

The kid was so earnest. He'd been practicing at the reception the night before, enunciating carefully between bites of hors d’oeuvres, looking to the Captain for approval and flushing furiously.

"That's good," the Captain said. "Really good. I guess that means I need to start working on my Enari-v, hmm?"

The delegate shook his head so hard his ceremonial wig, high and silver, almost tipped over. "We understand each other well enough, I think, without it. Come, Captain. We will speak."

In the lift, the Captain thought: Shit. I forgot about Spock.

I'll stop by later, he told himself, following Dimi out through the doors. Right after this meeting.

Dimi's quarters were cool and dry, tucked into a corner of the starbase four blessed floors above the conference rooms. They were a lot bigger, a lot swankier than the Captain’s.

"Smart," the Captain said, taking in the low sofa, the angular chairs. "Getting away like this. Has to be a lot quieter up here."

Dimi turned, two steps into what looked like a sleeping room set in the back wall. "You mean, quieter than your rooms, I presume?"

The Captain's mouth curved. "Than the room we meet in, certainly. And than the rooms I sleep in, too."

"Oh," Dimi said, still caught in the doorway. "Your rooms are not"—he hesitated, and the UT did, too—"comfortable?"

"They're fine," the Captain said, holding up his palms. "Really. Just closer in to the action. Makes it a little harder to separate yourself, is all." He smiled again, let Dimi see his ease. "Go on. Do what you need to do. I'm happy to wait.”

Dimi's mouth moved and the UT made a strange sound, low and guttural; nothing like any word in Enari-v the Captain had ever heard. He cocked his head, curious, waiting for an explanation, but Dimi just nodded and disappeared into the back room.

Well, the Captain thought, poking at the UT. Exceeded its programming, I guess.

Left to his own devices, he wandered to the viewport. This one was much larger than the keyhole he'd mooned over before. It cut a swath across the side of the room, a rich curve of clear that looked right out over the docks.

"Hot damn," the Captain said to himself. "I think I'm in love."

She was a Comet-class, one of the newer models. Small and sleek and gorgeous, round lines like a violin and elegant bends. She was so lovely that it was easy to see somebody underestimating her should they come nose-to-nose in deep space, but that was a mistake they’d only make once. With the service pods buzzing around her, she looked like he felt—stuck making nice with strangers while the rest of the galaxy went about its far more interesting business out in the darkness, beyond the reach of the starbase lights.

"Captain." Dimi was at his elbow, a glass of something blue and beautiful in his hand. "For you. Please."

The Captain accepted it, grateful. Took a long pull that tasted like bacon and strawberry, and then—

He looked up.

Dear gods, the boy was gorgeous. Not a boy, he told himself fiercely. Dimi looked young, sure, but by Benari-Vega standards, he was two shakes from middle age. Freed from his wig and his floor-length formal tunic, he was lovely. Just a few inches shorter that the Captain, his skin was flecked with gold and dappled with silver that the Captain realized he could see, suddenly, because Dimi's shirt, such as it was, fell soft and open across his body, a turquoise stream that exposed most of his chest and his arms. His hair was just a shade darker, electric waves that crested on his shoulder and framed those violet eyes. Eyes that met his with amusement. And something far more entertaining.

So.

"So," the Captain said, taking another sip of his drink, slow and deliberate. "What was it you wanted to discuss?”

Dimi smiled. He cupped the Captain's cheek, bold, his thumb strumming the Captain's mouth. "Perhaps I would rather not talk.”

It had been a long, long time since anyone had touched the Captain like that. No expectations, just a willing creature asking nothing in return, except to be touched in kind.

Hell, it’d been ages since he’d given in to it, the pull of a nice, easy fuck. His younger self would’ve considered that sacrilege, or at least a damn shameful waste.

Well. He had his reasons.

All right, just one.

“Oh for gods’ sake,” McCoy had groaned a few weeks before, throwing his boots up on the Captain’s desk. “Are you ever gonna say anything?”

The Captain shot him a look. “You know it’s not that simple.”

“Uh huh. I see. So your solution is to keep your trap shut until you die? Again?”

“I wasn’t dead, damn it, I was—”

McCoy waved his hand in the air. “Pffft,” he said. “In interphase whatever, blah blah blah. Another thirty seconds without oxygen and you’d have bit it, believe me, no matter where you were technically located.”

The Captain grabbed his coffee from the slot and slid into the chair opposite. “Is that why you thought I’d suddenly be amenable to this little chat? That I’d stared death in the face and been seized by the road not taken?”

The doctor’s lips twitched. “Maybe.”

“Look, I care about Spock. I’ve never made a secret of that.”

McCoy snorted. “Not with me.”

“Not with you,” the Captain said, conceding the point. “But what if I end up scaring the shit out of him? What if he has no clue what the hell I’m talking about—an outcome that you have to admit is highly goddamn likely.”

“Well—”

The Captain sighed. Scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Hell, Bones, what if I make him so uncomfortable that we can’t work together, that he thinks he can’t trust me—then I’ve fucked it all up for nothing.” He smiled, small and weary. “It’s not a risk I’m willing to take.”

The doctor let that sit for a second. “You know,” he said, almost gentle, “we’re not gonna be on this ship forever. You get that, right? Time and space and Starfleet, they wait for no man. Pointed ears or otherwise.” He slipped his legs off the desk and leaned forward, drummed the Captain on the head. “Just one more year here, Jim.”

“14 months.”

“14 months. But who’s counting.” A sigh, of the long-suffering variety. “All I’m saying is, risk or no, in this case, silence ain’t golden.” He’d raised a finger. “And I’m telling you right now, I’m not listenin’ to you whine for the next thirty years about what might have been and all that bullshit.”

But now, with Dimi in front of him, what felt like bullshit was how long the Captain had denied himself this, the uncomplicated pleasures of going to bed with someone beautiful just for the hell of it. No future, probably; sure as hell no complicated past. Just a stretch of blissful mutual present.

He pressed his free hand into Dimi's side, felt that shimmering skin bloom under his touch. “Dimi,” he said, “You’re right. We don’t need to talk.”

Dimi plucked the glass from his hand and cast it away. In one smooth motion, he tugged both of the Captain's hands to his chest and wound his arms around the Captain’s neck. He opened his mouth, too, just a touch, just enough to lure the Captain forward, to make him clutch at one elegant shoulder and pull, and Dimi made a noise that the Captain didn't need any technology to translate.

The Captain grinned, nipped at the boy's lip. Turned his tongue into the cool of that lush, lovely mouth. Dimi twitched his hips and groaned, low and dirty, and it struck the Captain, then, how blithely he'd walked into this most pleasant sort of ambush.

"Mmmm," he hummed into Dimi's cheek. "That's funny. You're not blushing. I thought you did that when you were happy, hmm? Should I be worried? Should I take that personally?"

The kid shivered. "I am," he said, hoarse. "Blushing. Just—not there."

"Oh my god," the Captain managed before Dimi kissed him.

It got messy fast, especially when the Captain pulled Dimi closer and ran his hands down the length of the kid’s back.

"Oh," Dimi hissed in Standard. "Yes. Yes."

The Captain nudged him away, just enough to bump Dimi against the nearest couch. He yanked off his tunic, command gold in his fist, and reached out for Dimi's.

"Come on, beautiful," he said. "Let me see you."

Dimi shoved his hands away and did—something that resulted in his clothes falling away, shirt and trousers alike, forming a soft pool at his feet. Clothed, he was a marvel; undressed, he was glorious. The silver and gold on his skin were turning, uneven scores of color that moved under the Captain’s eyes. Stars, they were, better than, great vistas of light that made the kid seem ethereal. Almost unreal.

“Captain,” Dimi said, the translator picking up his amusement. “Touching is all right, too. You need not only look.”

“Is that so.” He reached out, caught Dimi’s hips in his hands. “Well. Why don’t you show me where you want me to touch you, then.”

Dimi’s mouth curled. “Come into my bed and I will.”

The sheets were emerald and sapphire and god, Dimi looked divine in them, stretched out on his stomach as the Captain stroked the small of his back, the living sunset there blooming scarlet under his touch.

“Like this?” the Captain murmured. “Is this where you want my hands, sweet?”

Dimi shuddered and he filled the air with sound, like windchimes. “Your mouth,” he said. “Put your mouth on me, please.”

His skin tasted sweet strange, like wild honey strung with juniper, and the tension in his body, the way he arched into the Captain’s tongue even after the Captain pinned his hips to the bed and lapped mercilessly at the great clouds of color that pooled there, at the base of Dimi’s spine, made the Captain ache, made him work his hips into the sheets, his cock furious and hot inside his trousers.

“Please,” Dimi said, in Standard, in Enari-v, both. “Please, Captain, _yes_ , I want—”

His voice broke as his pleasure crested and starfields rushed across his shoulders, his back, swirls of silver that were hot under the Captain’s hands, molton in his mouth.

The Captain rolled off of his back, turned them both on their sides and kissed Dimi slow and soft. He sketched his hands over the kid’s shoulders, his body tense, anticipating the slide of those lovely hands on his overhead skin. But the Benarian-v made no move to touch him. Sure, he leaned back and accepted the Captain’s kisses, but he kept his hands tucked away, one beneath the pillow, the other insouciant in the sheets.

It was damned confusing.

Maybe, the Captain thought, he was the one being unclear.

“Dimi,” he said. “Will you touch me?”

Dimi sighed, his breath warm on the Captain’s cheek. “I do not.”

“You do not what?”

The kid’s eyes bobbed open, plum now, rich with satisfaction. “I do not touch. My”—he reached for the words—“my pleasure should be yours. That is what I would say.”

The Captain blinked. Ok. This was a first. “Is that,” he said carefully, “is that the way of your people, Dimi?”

A sound, grated pinecones, one the UT told him was laughter. “Oh, no, Captain,” Dimi said. “No. That is the way of me.”

This was fucking unbelievable. “I wish,” the Captain said through gritted teeth “that you’d told me beforehand.”

Dimi smiled at him, slow and sleepy. “How could I? You did not ask.”

He swallowed a half-dozen invectives that Dimi wouldn’t have understood anyway and aimed for a semi-dignified retreat. Grabbed his boots and ducked out of the sleeping chamber. Pulled his tunic from the floor and dressed by the viewport, hoping for one last glimpse of the Comet-class. But she was already gone.

In his quarters, he kept the lights off and rolled right into bed.

At first, he was angry. Then something that tasted like hurt.

It took a long, long time to find sleep.

________________

 

By morning, the hurt had dulled to embarrassment. What the hell had he been thinking, chasing after a kid like that? _In youth, there is folly; in old age, there’s only stupidity_ , McCoy had said to him, after a particularly foolhardy decision or twelve, and yeah, here he was, living proof.

All right, he wasn’t old, exactly. But on just this side of 40, he sure as hell wasn’t the kid he’d once been.

He shoved out of the sheets and went for the sonic. Pulled on clean uniform and mainlined a coffee and only then did he notice the light burning bright on his comm.

“Captain,” Spock’s first message began. “We had planned to meet this evening. Are you well?”

“Captain,” the second said, a little sharper, “I sincerely hope you are not injured.”

“Captain,” said the third, like snowfall on sand, “It seems logical to assume that you have made alternate plans. I regret that you did not inform me as such.”

The Captain drew a deep sigh. Damn. Not only had he fucked up his own evening—not to mention his dignity—he’d managed to screw up Spock’s as well. He owed his friend an apology.

But damn if he wouldn’t let the Captain give it to him.

Spock kept a discreet distance all morning. At the first break, he ignored the Captain’s _come over here_ hand gestures and stayed engrossed with two delegates from the Horta. At lunch, he sat with the head of the Nayiahe'x delegation, which was great for business but terrible for the Captain’s digestion.

“Something is wrong, Captain?” the Qma said, waggling its headfeathers in concern. “You have stopped consuming your food.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” the Captain said, knowing his face said precisely the opposite. “A little miscommunication with my friend there, that’s all.”

And that’s when he caught sight of Dimi at a table in the far corner. He was blushing mandarin at Ntol, the scowling Andorian who sat next to the Captain in conference.

He wasn’t scowling now.

No, he was leaning in to catch Dimi’s words, his antennae bobbing in time with his smile. The Captain couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the purpose of the conversation, its trajectory, was pretty damn clear.

He toyed with the idea of saying something, of warning the Andorian about what he was walking into, but hell. Maybe it wasn’t a thing with Dimi, always. Maybe it was a thing just for him.

Oh god, brain, he thought, stabbing at his salad. Shut the hell up.

By the end of the day’s proceedings, however, it was clear even to the Captain that substantive progress had been made, that they were much closer to the end of this conference than the beginning, and for that, he was profoundly grateful.

Spock, however, was still pretending that he didn’t exist. Or putting on a damn good show of it, anyway.

“Damn it,” the Captain said, as Spock sailed past him, a Rigelian on each elbow. “You stubborn son of a bitch.”

He stomped back to his quarters. Yanked his UT out and threw it in the direction of the table.

He checked for messages from Scotty. He ate dinner. He tried to read, failed. He gave up. Ordered brandy, which was a terrible idea. It only stoked the anti-matter in his head: his annoyance at Spock, his unease about Dimi, the strangeness of staring out windows filled with static stars—

He was out the door and down the hall before he knew it. Standing in front of Spock’s quarters, his hand on the chime.

The comm clicked on. “Yes?”

“Spock, it’s me. We need to talk.”

The door peeled back and there stood Spock, his arms crossed. “Very well.”

He stepped aside enough for the Captain to get inside and then he didn’t move, just stood there like a statue. The Captain shot a look at the living quarters, but Spock didn’t twitch. He sighed. Spock wanted to do this in the vestibule? Fine.

“Look,” the Captain said. “I’m sorry about last night. I should’ve told you my plans had changed. That wasn’t fair to you.”

“It’s unlike you to be so uncourteous,” Spock said. “I did not expect it.” Something flickered over his face, a cloud chasing the moon. “I must admit, I did become somewhat concerned.”

Now the Captain felt like an asshole. An especially discourteous one, at that. “Spock, I—”

Spock cut him off. “At least, I was until I discerned your location.”

“My—?”

Spock hesitated. “Your...preference for the delegate from Benari-Vega has not gone unnoticed. Among the other delegates, I mean.”

That brought the Captain up short. “Oh. I see.”

“So when the delegate was absent from last night’s reception— which he has previously frequented with some gusto, as you’ll recall—it was not difficult to determine where you most likely were.”

“Ok, Spock,” the Captain said, brushing away a Dimi-like flush, “I’ve got the picture.”

“Sir.”

They stared at each other for a moment. The light was thin, not red as it would have been in Spock’s quarters on the _Enterprise_ , but still a lot dimmer than the Captain was used to. Even a few feet away, Spock was a cypher, a sphinx swallowed by shadow.

“If you knew where I was,” the Captain said finally, “and thus had no cause for concern, you mind explaining why you’ve been ignoring me all day? Rather theatrically, might I add.”

“My apologies, Captain, I was...that is, I found myself—”

“What?”

Spock shifted, his body language blurry. “It is irrelevant. There is no logical explanation for my behavior, and therefore it is not germane to this conversation.”

Ok, he’d been pissed off, the Captain thought. And rightly so. Why the hell not just say so? He’d sure as hell earned it. But Spock was obviously uncomfortable. There was no reason to push it.

“Fine,” he said. “Whatever it was, it’s over and done with, is that it?”

“Um,” Spock said, “yes.”

The Captain took a step closer, curious. Was there was more to this than Spock was letting on? “You don’t owe me an explanation, you know.”

Spock’s eyes were gravity wells, dark and for the moment, unfathomable. “Neither do you, Captain.”

And maybe five days in drydock really had fried the Captain’s brain, because it was only then, with Spock so damn edgy in front of him, that his mental engines kicked on, peeled from stale orbit to sudden, beautiful warp.

“You were jealous,” he said, realization dawning. “My god. Spock, you were—?”

He could see Spock struggling to keep his face stone, his words stiff and formal. “A momentary lapse, sir,” Spock said. “I apologize.”

Well, goddamn, the Captain thought.

Jealousy could mean a lot of things to a lot of beings, sure, but in this context, only one of those meanings was logical. Which meant that Spock—

Oh.

So.

“Believe me, Spock,” the Captain said, trying his damnedest not to grin. ”There’s no need for apologies here.”

Spock stared at him, uneasy. “Captain, when I invited you here last evening, I was not...clear with you about my intentions.”

“Is that so?”

Spock looked at the floor. “Truthfully, I was not clear with myself about them, either. It was not until I determined where you had gone, why you had missed our appointment, that I realized—”

The Captain edged towards him, open, deliberate. “What?”

Spock took a step back, his shoulders brushing the wall. “I realized that I had invited you here until false pretenses.”

Another step. The tips of his boots against Spock’s. “Really.”

All at once, Spock seemed to recognize how close the Captain was, how snug the space he’d chosen for this conversation. The Captain could hear his breath catch, see his eyes soften as they turned down to meet his.

“I wanted you here,” Spock said, “because there were things I wished to say. Things I have not been able to acknowledge, much less articulate, until very recently.”

The Captain grinned. Let his knuckles trace the curve of Spock’s hip. “Fascinating. And they are?”

“They,” Spock said, helpless, “I—”

Two fingers under the hem of Spock’s shirt, a half circle, a rib. “Hmmm,” the Captain said. “You’ll have to be more specific than that, I’m afraid.”

Spock made a noise like an earthquake and then his hands were on the Captain’s face, hard and hot. “I would very much like to kiss you.”

“Well,” the Captain said. “I’m sure that can be arranged.” He spread his palms over Spock’s stomach, his sides. “Anything else?”

“Oh yes,” Spock said. “But let us begin there first.”

His mouth was steam and short breath and he kissed like he was afraid the Captain would disappear at any moment, a whisper of smoke in a dream. The Captain caught his neck and eased them back from the fury, drawing long, full kisses that were desperate and deep.

“You,” Spock got out, despite the Captain’s best efforts. “You want this?”

“I want you,” the Captain said, tucking the words against Spock’s tongue. “As surely you’ve deduced by now.”

“Your smugness is quite unbecoming,” Spock said.

The Captain rocked his hips, got a shot of heat against his thigh for his troubles, a gasp. “Funny,” he said, doing it again for good measure, and what a good measure it was, “that’s not the impression I’m getting.”

Somehow, they made it to the bed, clothes peppering the path. There was no elegance to it, no pretense, just a drive to get skin upon skin, as fast as goddamn possible, and then at last, Spock was a warm beach beneath him, living hills and slim valleys.

He tasted of salt and spice and it was like kissing lightning, having his mouth on Spock’s skin, the soft bends of his neck, his throat.

“Oh,” Spock said, small and hot. “That is—that is—” Long fingers turned over the Captain’s shoulders, rummaged through his hair, restless, his words compressed to a low, urgent rumble. “Yes. Oh.”

The Captain was sorely tempted to stay there, stretched out over Spock, to kiss him until there weren’t any words left to say. But he resisted that very pleasant temptation and dragged his mouth down instead, rambling across the curl of Spock’s chin, the plains of his chest, the pool of heat that lay between his hips.

His thighs rippled under the Captain’s palms, shimmering under the sun, his cock a rich curve, reaching, a hot weight against the Captain’s cheek.

“Wait,” Spock said from the bottom of a well. “Please—”

The Captain licked his lips, pressed Spock’s hips to the bed and Spock stopped him, durasteel at his wrists.

“No,” Spock said. “I want to touch you.”

He turned his face, touched his lips to Spock’s arm. “You are touching me, sweet.”

Spock shook his head. “I want to touch your cock, specifically.”

The Captain laughed. “I see. Specifically.”

“I want to please you,” Spock said, low, in a voice the Captain didn’t recognize, his hands going tight on the Captain’s wrists. “I want to draw my hands over your body, to touch every part of you that I can. You are beautiful, Jim. Let me show you.”

The Captain closed his eyes and let go of Spock’s hips, let Spock flip them over, let himself happy drift as Spock nipped the inside of his thighs, nuzzled his cock. Teased it with open-mouthed kisses, long drags of his tongue.

“Oh,” he said, stroking Spock’s hair, “that’s—god, Spock, that’s—”

“Yes,” Spock said. A whisper, the turn of his lips on the crown. “It is.”

He took the Captain in whole and everything else disappeared, nothing mattered, just the heat of his mouth and the feel of their hands wound together, tight in the sheets. For a moment, the Captain’s head was fully of light—he could’ve sworn he felt Spock’s thoughts at the edge of his own, birds beating their wings fervent against the bars of their cage, and all at once he felt he’d gotten there, finally, the one place in the universe that he was supposed to be.

He came with a shout, a fierce sound that rang off the ceiling and settled in waves over the bed, over Spock’s back as he swam up the sheets and stretched out at the Captain’s side.

His fingers on the Captain’s face, tracing the lines of his jaw, his mouth. “Yes,” he said again, “you are so very lovely.”

The Captain reached for him, still stupid with pleasure, contentment. “I’ve got news for you,” he said, drawing Spock’s cock into his palm. “So are you, Spock.”

Because gods, the look on Spock’s face as the Captain stroked him—disbelieving, ferocious, delighted—

“That’s it,” the Captain said, “just like that, come on. Yes. Yes.”

Spock groaned, his head falling back, his hands scrabbling at the Captain’s shoulders, his body moving determined, inexorable—

“Good,” the Captain said, somehow, like shouting into a whirlwind. “Come on, Spock. Let me have you, sweet. I want to feel you on my skin.”

The maelstrom lost its breath and Spock came, a sound torn out of him, aching, the heat of him over the Captain’s knuckles, his wrist.

“You have me,” Spock said, still trembling, still hard. “Jim. Surely you know that by now.”

After, they lay tangled on the bed, on the slim part of the sheet that still clung to the mattress.

“May I make a confession?”

The Captain chuckled. “If you feel like you need to, go ahead.”

“I find diplomacy very trying.”

“Really?”

“For any extended length of time, yes.”

“But you’re good at it. I mean, they’d still be stuck on clause 8, paragraph 7 if not for you.”

“Clause 9, paragraph 6, but I take your point.”

“Oh, well.”

“My skill set aside,” Spock said, “I find conferences of this sort a challenge. The proximity of disagreeable if not openly hostile beings. Their sheer number. And so much time spent speaking past each other, or lost in lengthy and often illogical formalities.”

The Captain raised his head. Smiled. “Everybody’s talking, nobody’s listening, is that it?”

An gentle eyebrow. “Succinctly put, but yes. That is often the case.”

“Hmmm.”

Spock traced the curve of his ear, the space where the UT usually sat. “Rest assured, however, that I am listening to you very closely at the moment, Captain.”

“Are you?”

“Mmmhmm.” He felt Spock’s fingers nudge his stomach, tap his hip. Turn over the tip of his cock. “And I sincerely hope,” Spock said, “that you understand what I am trying to say.”

Oh god. One touch and he was on his way to hard again already, like a kid, his cock eager and aching as Spock started stroking him, short and slick.

“I—oh, there is—no translation required, I can assure you.”

Spock’s lips turned against his, a smile he really, really wanted to see. “I cannot tell you how pleased I am to hear that.”

The Captain shuddered, clutched at Spock’s shoulders and held the hell on. “But just to be on the safe side, Spock,” he said, “why don’t you say it again?”

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed with love from Louden Swain's "Cool If I Come Over."


End file.
